The advantage is that you never boot from USB during XP Setupand that makes everything much more reliable and you have full control of what you are doing.Also using a single XP Setup ISO file mounted in ImDisk Virtual drive is much more reliablethan having a bunch of XP Setup files on USB.Transfer of the ISO file to USB is much faster and easier to maintain.Instead of USB-stick it is much better to use Portable 2.5 inch USB-harddisk e.g. Samsung S2As easy to carry and connect, but much higher speed and more capacity.

The Batch Program USB_MultiBoot.cmd can prepare a Bootable USB-Stick,which can be used to Install XP from USB.Install from USB-Drive is of general use, it's convenient and faster than installing from CD or DVD,but is limited to computers that are able to boot from USB, as determined by BIOS and Motherboard.Updating and Changing an USB-stick is also easier than preparing a new Bootable CD or DVD.Install XP from USB is very useful when the computer does not have a optical drive,like e.g. ASUS Eee subnotebook.

- Unpack USB_MultiBoot.zip to your Harddisk in a simple Path without SPACES.

USB_MultiBoot.cmd is Vista Compatible, but requires User Account Control OFF. In this case a BOOTMGR type BootSector is made when Formatting the USB-Drive.Such Bootsector is Detected and Auto Converted by BootSect.exe toNTLDR type Bootsector required for booting with boot.ini MenuXP as OS is Preferred for Speed of FileCopy to USB ( 10 min instead of 30 minutes for Vista OS )

The procedure for installing Windows XP from a bootable USB-stick was developed byilko_t , jaclaz , cdob, porear and wimb at MSFN Forum

Supports the use of BTS DriverPacks located in OEM Folder on USB-Drivehttp://driverpacks.net/downloadsFor installing XP on modern systems with SATA Drives it is needed to use DPsBase.exefor Integrating in your XPSOURCE BTS DriverPack Massstorage with TXT Mode Enabled.In that case a lot of Extra RAID SCSI and SATA Drivers (about 120 extra) are Integrated and will appear in theXP Setup BootFolder $WIN_NT$.~BT on USB-Drive and can prevent a lot of XP Installation Boot Problems.First use RyanVM Integrator and then use DPsBase to Improve your XP-Source.The program supplies a Customized presetup.cmd and changes the winnt.sif file for use of DriverPacks.

Excluding LANG and WIN98X Folders from Copying to USB can be Selected from USB_MultiBoot.cmd Main Menu, which can reduce the XP-Source on USB-Drive by 135 MB.Reduction of the XP WINDOWS Folder can be achieved with nLitebut do NOT select Operating System Options-->Manual Install and Upgrade for removal.If you do you will get BSOD, error 0x0000006F during Text mode Setup of Windows XP.

- Remove all other Removable Drives, like USB Backup Harddisks and Memory Cards- Use USB-sticks with High Read/Write Speeds of about 15 MB/sec- Unpack USB_MultiBoot.zip to your Harddisk in a simple Path without SPACES.

- Launch USB_MultiBoot.cmd and Display the Format Menu- Format the USB-Drive with FAT or NTFS. Note: FAT32 is very SLOW for installing XP

N) - No Format - Use USB-Drive with FAT or NTFS formatted by Windows XP
Or Update Existing Bootable USB-Drive having NTLDR Bootsector

- For USB-Harddisk use Main Menu Option 0) to Change from USB-stick to USB-Harddisk. Because this makes use of rdummy.sys and is essential for using USB-Harddisk. rdummy.sys makes Fixed USB-Harddisk seen in XP Setup as Removable Device.

Display and Edit of the 8 required parameters for Unattended Setup allows youto give your ProductKey and TimeZone used in the Current_winnt.sif and copies your winnt.sif file.The Current_winnt.sif file is auto adjusted for the Installation of XP from USB and thencopied by USB_MultiBoot.cmd to $WIN_NT$.~BT folder on USB-Drive.

The file useraccounts.cmd with UserName is made in the $OEM$ Foldercopied to $WIN_NT$.~LS folder on USB-Drive.CMDLINES.TXT is used for making UserAccounts and install of Registry Tweaks at T-12Info see: http://unattended.ms.../unattended.xp/

In all cases Selecting Cancel keeps given Settings for winnt.sif file and $OEM$ folder Unchanged

Selecting Unattended Install in the Editor instead of Cancel will enable to skip the Welcome Screensby automatic adding the unattendswitch="Yes" Setting to the [Data] Section of the Current_winnt.sif file.The UserName given at Edit Screen 8 will not be used in the case of XPSOURCE made by nLite.

OEM or nLite winnt.sif file is detected in XPSOURCE and Auto Changed for the Installation of XP from USB.In that case All Setup Parameters come from XPSOURCE and therefore Empty $OEM$_X Folder is Selected.

Windows XP file SETUPLDR.BIN is Renamed to XPSTP according to the 5-letter limit requirementfor making NTFS BootSector Files using MakeBS3.cmd of jaclazhttp://www.boot-land...?showtopic=2362

In the Attended Install all Setup Parameters are given Manually during the GUI Mode of Setup Windows XP.For each XP Source the Program Supports to launch Unattended or Attended Setup.For Attended Setup a second SetupLoader XATSP is made ,where winnt.sif is Patched as winat.sif using gsar.exeSo the extra Setup Option does not take extra space from the USB-stick.Attended Install is always available as Extra Option in the boot.ini Menu.

5. Installing XP from USB

Remove all other Removable Drives, like USB Backup Harddisks and Memory Cards
This will enable that your Computer Harddisk in XP Setup gets DriveLetter C

Boot with the USB-Drive plugged in and Press [Delete] key or F2 to Enter BIOS Setup
Your BIOS may use a different key for starting BIOS Setup.

Change BIOS Boot Priority Settings: (your USB device is listed as Harddisk)
Make First Boot Device Type is Harddisk and give your USB device the First Priority of Harddisks

***** NEVER UNPLUG USB-Drive ***** Until After First Logon of Windows XP

New Harddisk and Creating Partitions after Booting from USB-Drive:
Direct after Deleting and Creating New partitions, Quit XP Setup with F3
OR Switch OFF your Computer and Boot in any case from USB-Drive again and
Run 1. TXT Mode Setup again so that DriveLetters get their Correct Value
So in this case one Boots ** TWICE ** in the TXT-mode Setup XP

USB_MultiBoot.cmd can make USB-stick to be seen in XP Setup as Boot Drive U:
In this preferred case the driveletters of Harddisk Partitions and Optical Drives
will get there desired normal value.
Otherwise the USB-stick will get Drive Letter D: and other drives will get shifted drive letters.

The same shifting of drive letters occurs for Installing from USB-Harddisk,
for which it is not possible to make it seen as Boot Drive U: by changing migrate.inf
After First Logon there is only 1 USB-Harddisk partition visible as a Removable Drive.
After Reboot for Second Logon then all partitions of USB-Harddisk will become visible
as Fixed Local Drives and the highest partition number of USB-Harddisk will get DriveLetter D:
This reversal and use of DriveLetters might be unwanted and consequently
the use of USB-stick for XP Setup is Preferred

NON-STANDARD INSTALLS OF WINDOWS XP AND INSTALL OF WIN2003
Install of Windows XP from bootable USB-Drive
next to WINDOWS on the same or on a different partition of the harddisk,
is possible by proper manually adjustment in advance of the BOOT.INI file on the USB-Drive.

Adjust BOOT.INI on USB-Drive: ( Or Select Correct boot.ini Using Option B in Menu Screen )
For Install on the Second Partition, change partition(1) in partition(2)
For Install Next to WINDOWS, change WINDOWS to
what will be used as Install FolderName, e.g. WINDOWS.51
Windows Install Folder Name required according to MS-DOS 8.3 format

So these non-standard installs are still possible,
but require only small changes in the BOOT.INI on the USB-Drive in advance.
Otherwise an ERROR Message for Setup of WINDOWS XP: WINDOWS\system32\hal.dll file missing
will orccur on Reboot for GUI Mode.

hal.dll ERROR for Install of XP from USB=========================================================================In case of hal.dll Error on Reboot for GUI-mode of XP Setup:The Error means only that in GUI mode the Windows folder is NOT found on the default locationwhich is normally partition(1) of your internal harddisk and would need in boot.ini Menu to Select rdisk(1)partition(1)

The error can be due to a Hidden First Partition (case of HP Computer) so that you Install on partition(2)

For your Netbook it can be that you Install on partition(3)In that case you Select in GUI-mode and on Start of XP the line in boot.ini Menu with HD 1 - Part 3

It is also recommended to remove any Additional USB-drive like USB Backup Harddisk or External Cardreadersince these extra USB-drives may interfere in Harddisk numbering and can cause then also the hal.dll Error.

In TXT-mode of XP Setup, where you Select the partition on which you are going to Install,you must count the partition number and use this in your boot.ini Menu on your USB-stickon Reboot for GUI-mode of XP Setup and for Start of XP.

To solve your hal.dll Error you need to Change the boot.ini file on your USB-stick.It can be handy to make a boot.ini with multiple entries like this:

Partition Numbering starts with 1Harddisk Numbering starts with 0On booting from USB-stick it will count in the arcpath as rdisk(0) and your Internal Harddisk will then normally be rdisk(1)

As alternative you can try:Install from USB AFTER Booting with PEhttp://www.boot-land...showtopic=10138In this way you are insensitive to the hal.dll ErrorMoreover, after booting with LiveXP into PE environment you are able touse Disk Manager and can see what is the partitioning of your harddisk andsee which is the Active Partition e.g. the partition from which the computer will try to boot.Also you can make then appropriate changes using Disk Manager or Acronis Disk Director available in LiveXP =========================================================================

6. Post-Install of Drivers and Programs

The Folder usb_cfg_extra provides a script for Windows Post-Install Wizard (WPI) - http://wpiw.net/WPI is very handy for the Automatic Install of Programs after Install of XP from USB.

In WPI script there is the option to run SFC /purgecache which deletes the dll cacheby deleting the files in Folder C:\WINDOWS\system32\dllcacheThis is a very simple way to reduce the WINDOWS Folder Size by 360 MB The Result is a XP WINDOWS Folder Size on Harddisk of only 785 MB inclusive all Updates.

Multiple PE (BartPE and UBCD4Win) from USB is supported using Multi_Partition USB-Drives.Multi-Partition an USB-stick after using INSTALL_DUMMY.cmd from makebt Folder.When dummy.sys is Installed in your OS, then USB-sticks are seen as Fixed Local Harddisks.In that case you can make Multiple Partition USB-sticks with NTFS format,allowing to combine BartPE and UBCD4WIN or different Vista Versions x86 and x64http://www.msfn.org/...m....html&st=11http://www.911cd.net...o...20089&st=24Run USB_MultiBoot.cmd again using New BartPE Source andusing Empty XX_CONTENT Source Folder and No Copy of XP Source.

================================================================================EDIT by jaclaz:SERVICE POSTThis thread was getting "out of hand", I splitted "self-standing" issues and solutions to new threads, ALL of them have as title:"[Solved] Install XP from USB"Use the board search (advanced) and input as search string "[Solved] Install XP from USB" - including double quotes to find them.Other "unfinalized" issues are titled [Abandoned] Install XP from USB, as the OP never came back.

I tried this. File copying to USB drive works fine but in the mid of file copying from USB to SSD(ASUS EEE PC), I got file read error at around 50%. Some files are missing. I tried reformatting the USB drive and redo the whole process but still get file reading error. I'm using XP Pro SP 3 image for XPSOURCE. Ive tried 16GB SDHC, 2GB SD and a 2GB USB flash drive.

I tried this. File copying to USB drive works fine but in the mid of file copying from USB to SSD(ASUS EEE PC), I got file read error at around 50%. Some files are missing. I tried reformatting the USB drive and redo the whole process but still get file reading error. I'm using XP Pro SP 3 image for XPSOURCE. Ive tried 16GB SDHC, 2GB SD and a 2GB USB flash drive.

i found this program and tutorial amazing, but i have a little problem.
I'm able to boot from usb and to install xp, but this work just once, i explain, i need to install xp on many pc, on the first pc everything work without a problem, when i try on the second pc i'm able to boot, i can format and partitioning hard drive but when it start copying file i get a lot of can't find errors on file like:

I'm able to boot from usb and to install xp, but this work just once, i explain, i need to install xp on many pc, on the first pc everything work without a problem, when i try on the second pc i'm able to boot, i can format and partitioning hard drive but when it start copying file i get a lot of can't find errors on file like:

There is however recently developed a NEW procedure using USB_XP_Setup package,Install XP from USB AFTER Booting with PE from HDD or USB, which does not have this problem.http://www.boot-land...?showtopic=5306

In fact the only thing I do is Create the XP BootFolder $WIN_NT$.~BT of only 12 MB on the Install Driveby parsing dosnet.inf and to specify in TXTSETUP.SIF where to find the FULL XPSOURCE.XP Setup Source Folder can be on USB-stick or on partition 1 of USB-HDD or second HDD-Drive.The XP Source might even be on CD/DVD, but we prefer of course to Install from fast USB-stick.So the $WIN_NT$.~LS of about 500 MB is not made in this NEW way of Install XP from USB, this saves time and there is no risk of loosing files during the XP Setup process.

The advantage of the NEW technique is that there are no changes needed in the BIOS Setting.Booting for XP Setup occurs all the time as normal from the C-Install Drive if you Install on C-Drive.Thus the USB-stick does not need to be bootable and it is not needed that the motherboard supports booting from USB.

May be the Video quality can be further improved for better readability of the screens.Anyway it is a very nice presentation.

The author of this video I would like to advice to SET the BootPriority as described in the END Help such that USB-Drive is seen as First Harddisk, before launching TXT-mode of Setup XP so that the whole procedure runs automatically without the WINDOWS\system32\hal.dll file missing Error.By the way, this ERROR only means that the WINDOWS folder is not found on the drive where it was expected.It is necessary to Boot all the time from the USB-drive.

*** HELP for Using MultiBoot USB-Drive *** Read Help_USB_MultiBoot.txt File Boot with USB-Drive plugged and Press [Delete] or F2 to Enter BIOS Setup Change BIOS Boot Settings: Harddisk is First Boot Device Type and USB-Drive is seen as First Harddisk Reboot from USB-Drive and Make Selection from Boot Menu===================================================================== ***** HELP for Using USB-Drive for Install of Windows XP: *****

First Remove ALL Other USB-Drives ** So Harddisk in Setup gets DriveLetter C Reboot from USB-Drive and Select 1. TXT Mode Setup Windows XP Use Only C: Drive of Computer Harddisk as Partition for Install of Windows XP and then Select Quick Format with NTFS FileSystem, XP Install is Automatic

***** NEVER UNPLUG USB-Drive ***** Until After First Logon of Windows XP

New Harddisk and Creating Partitions after Booting from USB-Drive: Direct after Deleting and Creating New partitions, Quit XP Setup with F3 OR Switch OFF your Computer and Boot in any case from USB-Drive again and Run 1. TXT Mode Setup again so that DriveLetters get their Correct Value So in this case one Boots ** TWICE ** in the TXT-mode Setup

I have some problems with building USB SP setup. My motherboard is capable for USB booting.
When take an option to boot from USB, BIOS said that he found boot sector, but in second later, computer is restarted.

What is the problem? Where to look?

Before making USB, I installed dummy.sys. Is that a problem? Should I uninstall it?

I followed the instruction and i have two problems:
- In the installation progress, I have two error messages of cannot find binifix.cmd and another .cmd file
- After the installation I can boot into XP with the USB plugged in. If I remove the USB then I have the following error message:
"Windows could not start because of a computer disk hardware configuration problem
Could not read from the selected boot disk. Check boot path and disk hardware
Please check the Windows documentation about hardware disk configuration and your hardware reference manuals for additional information"

I've just try again the whole process and this times I don't have missing file alert as well as "Windows could not start...". I have only one small stuff which I think I can fix is the boot menu now with "USB Repair NOT to Start Microsoft Windows XP Professional" along with "Microsoft Windows XP Professional". I think I can change the boot.ini to fix that. Do you have any advice for me?

I have only one small stuff which I think I can fix is the boot menu now with "USB Repair NOT to Start Microsoft Windows XP Professional" along with "Microsoft Windows XP Professional". I think I can change the boot.ini to fix that. Do you have any advice for me?